reinstalling upgrade version of XP

[Eagle Eye]

Hi,
I would like to start over from scratch.
It has a driver which is crashing the system. I've tried nearly
everything to be rid of this driver, but there is still something
hanging around which I cannot seem to find. It all started with a
driver for a wireless network card.
The card is gone, but there are still remnants of the driver giving me
headaches.

I have an upgrade version of XP.
It won't allow me to reinstall the OS. It says the one I have is
currently newer.
Even though I have it set to boot from the CD in my boot sequence of
the BIOS, if one is inserted, it simply will not. This comes before
the hard drive, so it should boot from the CD. I even changed all
boots to come from the CD, but it still finds the one on the hard
drive and boots that.

I just cannot get it to boot from the CD to reinstall the OS, which is
what it instructs me to do if I still want to install the OS even
though the one I have on the hard drive is a more recent version.

Since I have an upgrade version, it doesn't seem I could simply screw
up my MBR so that it couldn't boot from the hard drive. Then, I'm
afraid, it would complain I don't have an upgradable OS installed, or
something of the sort.

Any help?

Thanks!
EagleEye

 

[SC Tom]

Hi,
I would like to start over from scratch.
It has a driver which is crashing the system. I've tried nearly
everything to be rid of this driver, but there is still something
hanging around which I cannot seem to find. It all started with a
driver for a wireless network card.
The card is gone, but there are still remnants of the driver giving me
headaches.

I have an upgrade version of XP.
It won't allow me to reinstall the OS. It says the one I have is
currently newer.
Even though I have it set to boot from the CD in my boot sequence of
the BIOS, if one is inserted, it simply will not. This comes before
the hard drive, so it should boot from the CD. I even changed all
boots to come from the CD, but it still finds the one on the hard
drive and boots that.

I just cannot get it to boot from the CD to reinstall the OS, which is
what it instructs me to do if I still want to install the OS even
though the one I have on the hard drive is a more recent version.

Since I have an upgrade version, it doesn't seem I could simply screw
up my MBR so that it couldn't boot from the hard drive. Then, I'm
afraid, it would complain I don't have an upgradable OS installed, or
something of the sort.

Any help?

Thanks!
EagleEye

What are the chances of reinstalling the card and driver for it? Maybe a
reinstallation/ re-uninstallation would remove the driver completely.

What version service pack are you on? You can always create a slipstreamed
CD of XP w/SP? and use it to do a repair installation and see if that fixes
it. Or use the slipstreamed CD to run SFC /SCANNOW. There are a few things
that need to be done before attempting a repair installation. Read this
article:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/917964

Here's a good article outlining how to do a repair install:
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

If worse comes to worst, you can then use that CD to do a clean install, or
another "upgrade."

 

[Eagle Eye]

Hi SC Tom,

What are the chances of reinstalling the card and driver for it? Maybe a
reinstallation/ re-uninstallation would remove the driver completely.

Tried this several times. Didn't work. This card is the card from
hell.

What version service pack are you on? You can always create a slipstreamed
CD of XP w/SP? and use it to do a repair installation and see if that fixes
it. Or use the slipstreamed CD to run SFC /SCANNOW. There are a few things
that need to be done before attempting a repair installation. Read this
article:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/917964

I always do the updates, so whatever is the latest (SP3?).

Thanks for all the info. I will read the mentioned articles to see if
I can figure out how to do a 'slipstreamed CD of XP'.
Never heard of this before.

EagleEye

 

[SC Tom]

Hi SC Tom,


Tried this several times. Didn't work. This card is the card from
hell.


I always do the updates, so whatever is the latest (SP3?).

Thanks for all the info. I will read the mentioned articles to see if
I can figure out how to do a 'slipstreamed CD of XP'.
Never heard of this before.

EagleEye

Here's a decent article on slipstreaming. It says SP2 , but works the same
for SP3:
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp2_slipstream.asp

Another thing you might try before going through all this is the Windows
Installer CleanUp Utility http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301
or possibly Revo Uninstaller
http://www.revouninstaller.com/revo_uninstaller_free_download.html

If it lists the driver installation, that might get rid of it.